“I can do not-beige,” Jax said. “I can do a bit of something else.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you can.” Her blue eyes were bright and lovely. “But I do have one thing I need to ask you.”
“OK.”
“Why me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, you said that you were getting tired of the casual encounters in the back rooms, right? So… why not have something more exclusive with someone else? Someone more… experienced. Someone you already know, maybe.”
“Truth?”
“Yeah. Always, Jax.”
“Because you’re smart and gorgeous and tough as hell. I like that you take care of your brother, and watch out for your family, and I love that you can beat me at pool, even though it’s kind of a kick to my ego.” Jax paused, decided to take the plunge. “And I want to see you naked, ‘cause, baby? I know you’re a knock-out. Your body is amazing, and I am dying to get my hands and mouth all over it. I want to make you feel good, Sarah. I want to make you feel things you’ve never felt before… things you didn’t even know you were capable of feeling.”
She stared at him now, her body heating up at his words, the area between her legs turning liquid. He saw it in her face and his own desire flared. He reached out to her, slowly, giving her time to back up if she wanted to.
Sarah didn’t want to move anywhere. She wanted him to kiss her again.
I want him to make me feel.
Jax lowered his lips to hers and she shuddered at the contact. He got to his feet now, pulled her up roughly. He walked her backwards, kissing her the whole time, and Sarah felt the wall hit her back. She gasped as Jax pressed his entire length against her, trapping her, surrounding her. She’d never felt so overpowered and overwhelmed; so taken control of and taken. And she fucking loved it.
Jax lifted his lips away, no more than an inch. “You alright?”
“Yes.” She was breathless, her eyes bright. “Better than alright.”
He ran his large hands down her trembling body, stopped at her waist. He pressed his strong fingers in to her soft hips, and she arched, just a bit, at the pressure. Then his mouth was on hers again, more demanding and hotter than before.
“Touch me too,” he whispered. “Don’t be shy.”
Sarah realized that her hands had been balled in to fists at her side, but his words unlocked something in her, like he’d given her permission to do something forbidden. Risky. Pleasurable.
Tentatively, she set her hands on his chest, relishing the muscle and heat. He stood still now, sensing her hesitation. She moved her hands up, over his broad shoulders, and she clung there, feeling impossibly small and feminine. She’d never felt that way before: she was average height, but her hips and shoulders were wide and her breasts were large and she hated standing near Elise for those exact reasons. But next to Jax, she felt delicate. Fragile, even.
My God. He could break me.
He seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. He was gentle now as he kissed her – his tongue stroked and teased, requesting entry, not demanding it. She opened to him with a moan of assent bursting out of her throat. He almost growled in response and right away, the hunger was back in him. He thrust in to her sweet mouth, his hips pushing in to the cradle of her curvy thighs at the same time. Sarah held on to him harder, feeling dizzy from the riot of new sensations running through her body.
Jax felt her shaking get stronger now, sharper somehow, and he stopped. “Sarah?”
Those blue eyes were hazy, almost confused.
“Hey,” he said softly. “This too much? Too intense?”
“I – I don’t know.”
Jax didn’t pull back, but he eased up on his grip a bit. “What are you feeling?”
She looked up at him, vulnerable and open. “Wanted. Desired.” She paused. “Safe.”
“You are.” His voice was rough. “You’re all of those things. You hear me, doll? You’re safe with me. We never, ever do anything you don’t want.” He ran his fingers through those amazing red curls. “You believe me?”
She nodded.
“OK.” He pressed one last kiss on her lips, tender and lingering, then he pulled back. “So… does this mean that you’ll let me take you to dinner on Saturday night? Someplace nice?”
Right away, she looked uncertain. “Oh, Jax…”
“What? Saturday’s no good?”
“No, it’s fine. Mom’s not working. But…”
“But what?”
“Nowhere expensive and elegant, OK?”
“How come? I can afford it, if that’s what you’re worried about. Maybe we can go to Chorus. You ever been there?”
She shook her head, but he didn’t know if she was saying that she’d never been, or she was rejecting the suggested restaurant.
“So you want to go?”
“I – I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She looked like she might cry.
“Sarah?” Jax was totally perplexed. “What’s wrong?”
She wrestled with herself, and finally just told him the truth. “I don’t have anything to wear someplace high-end. We – money’s always tight, and I don’t have anything nice, at all.” Her face was bright pink and Jax saw real humiliation there. “I – I don’t even own a dress that fits me anymore.”
He stared at her. Goddamn, her life was rough and grim, and he wanted nothing more than to make it better somehow, any way that he could.
“OK,” he said softly. “So I see two choices here, right? Either I buy you a dress and we go out and paint the town red, or we have dinner at my place and you wear your jeans.” He ran his finger over her full lower lip. “You decide what you want to do.”
She looked down at her feet.
“Hey.” He raised her chin to meet his gaze. “Fancy or no-frills, Red? I promise you, I’m good either way.” Real want was burning in those green eyes. “You’re going to look beautiful no matter what you’ve got on, and no matter where we go for dinner, you’re dessert. I don’t care if I’m peeling a pricey dress or a pair of jeans off that fucking gorgeous body… you’re gonna be just as delectable while I’m doing it.”
Sarah flushed a hot red and her pussy slicked up helplessly at his words. God, she had always hated it when Dave had talked about getting her naked, but when Jax did it, it was… different. Hot and dirty, but fun and flirty too, and still somehow respectful. Dave had always made it sound like she owed him something for paying for coffee or working around Noah’s needs, but Jax was giving her the choice. It made all the difference in the world.
“Jeans and t-shirts at your place,” she said.
He smiled, slow and sexy. “OK, Sarah. Casual at my house it is.” He took a step away from her now, and her body protested the separation between them. “Come as you are, baby.”
Chapter Seven
Annie Matthews sighed, torn between two wildly conflicting emotions.
On the one hand, she was thrilled to death that Sarah was finally going to be getting out of the house once in a while. The girl had been dealt a pretty crappy hand these past few years, and God knows, if anyone deserved a distraction, it was her. But was the owner of Dangerous Curves, that dive bar overrun with criminals and whores, really the kind of distraction that Sarah needed? On the whole, Annie thought not.
“So.” Annie narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “He’s coming to pick you up here, is he?”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah. He’ll be here in about five minutes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mom.” Sarah kept her voice low and glanced over at Noah, absorbed in his TV show. She was suddenly totally convinced that driving herself would have been the smarter option, but Jax had insisted: he said that they were going to do their first real date properly, and that meant he came and got her, met her Mom, said hi to Noah. Sarah had bee
n oddly touched at this rough man’s formality and respect at the time that he'd made the offer. Now, she kind of wished that he’d been an asshole about it and told her to find her own goddamn way to his place.
“What?” Annie said.
“Come on,” Sarah said. “Don’t give Jax a hard time, OK?”
“What the hell kind of a name is ‘Jax’ anyway?” Annie asked.
“I don’t know,” Sarah muttered. “Maybe short for Jackson?”
“But then wouldn’t he be ‘Jack’?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much about this guy, do you?” Annie shook her head. “Come on, Sarah… you sure you want anything to do with anyone from that shithole?”
“From Curves, you mean?”
“Yeah. It’s not a nice place, not at all, and if Jax owns it, then it means that he’s not a nice guy. Not at all.” Annie sighed again. “Why not hold out for a decent man instead of some low-life? A man with an education and a respectable job? Someone who can lift you up a bit in the world instead of dragging you down?”
“A guy like Dave?” Sarah said.
“Yeah.” Annie shrugged. “What the hell happened with him anyway?”
“He cheated on me. Then he beat me up in the parking lot at Curves.”
Annie stared at her, stunned. “He – what? He fucking what?”
“Yep. Your college-educated, PhD student from a rich New York family stuck his dick in some sorority babe, then hit me so hard and so many times, I needed stitches.”
Annie gasped. Sarah turned her back on Noah, pulled her hair off her forehead to show her mother the thin, dark mark along her hairline.
“And you know who helped me and took care of me, Mom? Jax and his low-life friends from that shithole. They got me to a bed, and Mac did the stitches, and Jax slept on the sofa across the room to make sure I was safe, and the next morning, he got me home in time to get Noah his breakfast. King fixed my car for free after Dave slashed all the tires, and he brought it back here.” Sarah’s normally sweet, soft voice was pure steel. “So don’t you treat Jax like crap, Mom, ‘cause he’s done nothing to deserve it. And it’s not like we’re the Royal Family, you know. We’re exactly one half-step above white trash, so mocking Jax for a lack of education or social standing is a bit hypocritical, huh?”
“Sarah…”
“No, Mom. You be decent to him. Promise me.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I – I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me? About Dave?”
“Because it was over, and I’m fine. Nothing much to say, in the end.”
Annie studied her daughter. “And Jax is different? You’re sure?”
“Positive. He’s no choir boy, that’s for certain, but he’s never going to hurt me. That I do know. OK?”
“OK.” Annie walked over to Sarah. “Now let me see those stitches.” She examined them closely. “They’re even, small, really neat. Who’d you say did them?”
“Mac. He’s a doctor.”
Annie laughed, surprised. “A doctor goes to Curves?”
“Yeah.” Sarah grinned. “Mac’s kind of a doctor-biker, I guess. Tattoos, long hair, don’t-mess-with-me vibe. I quite like him.”
“Oh, Lord. The people you get yourself all mixed up with, honey. Be careful, alright?”
Sarah nodded, and then they heard the roar of an engine outside. She glanced out the window to see Jax getting off his motorcycle. “He’s here.”
“He has a bike?”
“Mom…” Sarah’s voice was a warning.
Annie threw up her hands. “OK, OK… sorry.”
They heard a knock at the door, and Sarah smoothed down her unruly curls before opening it up. And there he was, large and gorgeous in jeans and a black leather jacket, his dark hair a bit messy, his green eyes blazing down at her. Right away, her heart stopped. The thought that she was going to spend the evening at this man’s place, eating food, was quite literally incomprehensible.
How the hell did I get together with this guy?
“Hey, Red.” That husky growl made her stomach tighten. “How you doing?”
“Good, Stud.” Her voice was a squeak and he grinned at her attempted bravado. “Come in, meet my Mom.”
Jax stepped in to the house, his body taking up an astonishing amount of space in the small room. He took it all in: the sparse furnishings, the cheap dishes on the counter, the effort Sarah had made at painting a bit of brightness in to the kitchen.
Timid, shy, Sarah looked up at him, saw no judgment on that tough face. Not like Dave, who always acted like he was going to catch something every time he entered the house and breathed the air. More than once, she’d had to fight down the urge to ask him if he wanted her to fetch him a plastic sheet to sit on.
“Jax, this is my Mom, Annie Matthews. Mom, Jax Hamill.”
They regarded each other, both seeing quite a bit, neither one totally sure they liked what they saw. From Annie’s side, she saw a whole lot of trouble and heartache – a hot biker playing business owner, a guy who’d been with far too many women, a man who was going to screw her daughter over in every sense of the expression.
Jax looked at Sarah’s mother and saw a woman who’d been beaten down by life, hard. A woman who had undoubtedly been beautiful once upon a time, but who had long ago given up trying. She looked most-of-the-way to bitter, and she was exactly the kind of person who could smother Sarah’s light and spirit.
Not that Annie would grind Sarah down on purpose, he thought, but sometimes people could kill you with a thousand paper cuts. Stealing Sarah’s joy could be done over years, over thousands of conversations, over a million small daily irritations.
His own mother had made one hell of an effort to do it to his kid sister, but Megan was made of pretty strong stuff, and thank God, because Jax hadn’t been around much. This time, Jax was damned if he was going to let that happen on his watch. He’d keep Sarah safe from anything or anyone looking to bring her down, and that included her own mother.
They shook hands, a hundred silent words passing between them, then Jax turned to Noah.
“Hey, Noah.”
Noah looked up, blinking. “Jax, Jax, Jax.”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Jax grinned. “Good to see you.”
Noah nodded, turned his attention back to the TV.
“OK,” Jax said. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
“Grab your jacket, baby. It’ll be chilly later.”
Annie looked up sharply at the endearment, but didn’t say anything. He gazed right back down at her, not looking the slightest bit sorry to have called Sarah a pet name in front of her mother.
“Goodnight, Mom,” Sarah said tightly, very aware of the tension between Annie and Jax. “Don’t wait up.”
Noah looked over now. “Sarah?”
“Hey, don’t worry.” Her voice was gentle now, and Jax loved to hear it. “I’ll be here in the morning, OK?”
“For breakfast?”
“Yes, I’ll have your breakfast ready. I promise.” She gave Noah a kiss on the head and he touched her hand. “You be good for Mom, right?”
“Right.”
“Love you, Noah.”
“Love you, Sarah.”
“Yeah, I know you do. Goodnight.”
Noah nodded again, went back to gazing intently at the TV.
Jax opened the door for her, placing his hand on the small of her back as they walked down the path together. When they got to his bike, he did up her helmet, making sure to stroke her cheek every chance he got. She closed her eyes as those rough fingers moved over her skin, and he longed – to the point of sheer desperation – to kiss her. But no way he was doing that with Annie peeking through the curtains at them.
“When we get to my place,” he murmured. “I am going to kiss the
hell out of you.”
Her breath caught.
“You going to have a problem with that?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Yeah. I didn’t think so.” He straddled the bike, extended his hand to her. “Hop on, Red. Let’s go.”
This time, she wrapped herself around him with no hesitation at all. Now that their relationship had been clarified and declared, she wasn’t holding back from him. She held on tight, loving to feel his body under her hands, between her legs. She was sorry to be wearing the helmet: she wanted to rest her cheek against his broad, leather-clad back, to just inhale him, absorb him in to her own body.
They headed out of the city, up the Rockies. She stared up at the sky, taken aback that Jax lived way out here; it was beautiful, but she’d taken him for a city boy, through and through. When he pulled up in front of a house and typed a code that slid the heavy front gate open, she gazed at it in complete shock.
Jax drove around the side of the house to a covered outdoor garage. He stopped, killed the engine. “We’re here. Home sweet home.”
Sarah looked around. There was a sprawling backyard, fragrant flowers. On shaky legs, she got off the bike and stood mute as Jax unstrapped her helmet. She took a few steps towards the rolling green lawn, stopped when she saw a pool and a hot tub.
She turned to look at him. “What. The. Hell?”
Jax leaned back against his motorcycle and shrugged. “What can I say? The bar business pays well.” He grinned. “People always want beer, you know?”
Sarah stared at him some more, knowing that wasn’t the whole story, but it was rude to ask people about their bank balance. She nodded.
“Now.” His eyes were hot. “Come over here and say hello properly.”
She didn’t need to be asked twice. Sarah walked straight over to him, stepped between his spread legs. She slipped right on in to his arms like she belonged there, lifted her shining face to his. Jax was a bit surprised at her eagerness, but he decided that he liked it. A lot.
When he kissed her, the force of her response almost took the knees out from under him, making him glad to be sitting. She surrendered to him, completely; he felt her just put herself in his hands. No fear, no holding back. Sarah just gave herself to him – trusting him – and that touched Jax somehow, made him determined to be careful with the gift she’d just bestowed upon him.
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